


cookie crumbs

by Soulykins



Series: old dog, old tricks [10]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Five eats them anyway, Five will literally eat anything, Food Issues, Gen, Good Sister Vanya Hargreeves, Klaus makes 'cookies', Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Sibling Bonding, five is a little shit, mentions of Ben but he doesn't actually appear, sorry - Freeform, very questionable cookies, which is depressing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-28 06:35:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18204806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soulykins/pseuds/Soulykins
Summary: Klaus is trying his hand at being a culinary genius. Five is watching the chaos unfold. Luther was only dragged into this to make sure the kitchen wouldn't burn down, because god knows Five would just watch it burn with delight.Then chaos happens, the cookies turn out to be - interesting to say the least. Five seemingly has an iron stomach, and the siblings learn that he'll eat just about anything.Vanya has to be the voice of reason in the end of things.





	cookie crumbs

Five was sitting on the counter, swinging his legs back and forth in a thump-thump rhythm against the cabinet for once uncaring of how childish it made him look. He was far too interested in watching the absolute chaos unfolding in the rest of the kitchen to care about something so trivial as what other people thought of him.

The radio was blasting music that Klaus definitely did _not_ know the words to as he danced around the kitchen and their largest brother gleefully. Luther looked like he’d given up on fighting whatever was going on here in the first place.

Clearly having given up on even vaguely pretending he knew the lyrics, Klaus was instead narrating his next step. “You put the! Yeah! Flour in the - ooh! Bowl! Mix it up!”

“Maybe we should just wait for Mom.” Luther said, like he’d been saying for the last half an hour since they’d started this endeavor. 

“No no no,” Five said, holding up a hand, “I want to see where this goes.”

Luther gave Five a withering look at his unasked for input, “It’s going towards burning down the kitchen is where it’s going.”

Klaus popped up from the cabinets with yet another box of something clutched in his hands - waving it around in the air enough that Five couldn’t quite get a good look at what exactly it was. “That’s why you’re supervising us, bro! What, you think we asked you to hang around for the joy of your company?”

Five snorted and Luther had on his morally offended face, which just made Klaus shrug and go back to whatever it was he was doing. He dumped half of the box’s contents into the massive mixing bowl, seemingly forgoing any kind of actual measuring.

“No, I know what I’m doing.” Klaus said, a sure indication that Ben was also around to witness the disaster. Five stuck another marshmallow in his mouth, far better than popcorn.

Luther took a seat at the table and put his face in his hands, clearly already done with all these shenanigans. Weak. Five was one hundred percent sure the shenanigans were only just beginning, especially as Klaus splashed seemingly half a bottle a milk across the counter with a quick ‘oops’ on his lips.

“Couldn’t Five supervise? Or Ben?” Luther asked, already looking like he knew the answer.

Klaus didn’t even hesitate, gesturing with the milk again and sloshing more on the floor, “Because Five’s idea of food is a peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches. Also, he hasn’t cooked in like, four decades? I thought you didn’t want to burn the house down?”

“Ben is incorporeal. Do you really think he’s able to talk Klaus out of doing something stupid in time?” Five pointed out, grabbing the jar of peanut butter next to him and jabbing a spoon in. He decided, very graciously, to not use the spoon in question as a projectile weapon at Klaus’s insult regarding his tastes.

“I want no part in this.” Luther deadpanned, but he didn’t get up from the table which was permission to continue all by itself. Not even when Klaus fistbumped to the music and ended up tossing a bunch of brown sugar in the air that rained down on Luther’s disappointed face.

Five pulled the spoon out of his mouth with a pop and swallowed, “I think you were supposed to soften the butter before adding it in.”

Klaus considered the concoction critically, “Maybe we can just put the whole thing in the microwave? Just for a second.”

“Inspired idea, Klaus.” Five nodded his approval.

Luther, ever the killjoy, sighed deeply. “We are not putting a metal bowl in the microwave, guys. That how burning down the house happens.”

Klaus clearly considered this, tilting his head in a way that clearly indicated that he was listening to Ben’s input as well, before lunging for the microwave anyway. Fortunately for the fate of the kitchen, Luther had already stood up and reached to grab Klaus’s collar and toss him back in the direction of the counter.

“You could steal Allison’s hairdryer?” Five blinked innocently.

“We’re not doing that either,” Luther denied, “If you just wait the butter will soften from being room temperature.”

“Have you literally ever known Klaus to have even a microscopic speck of patience?” It was actually an honest question and Five stared at Luther with an expectant expression. 

Klaus shrugged, “He’s got a point. Hairdryer is it?”

“Oh my god,” Luther looked up in the air as if praying for someone to come and save him from sibling bonding time or at the very praying that it didn’t have to be his turn on the brain cell right now, “Just pick the butter out of the bowl and put it in a microwave safe one.”

“So boring, Luther!” Five sighed, jabbing the spoon back into the the peanut butter. Klaus made a gleeful noise as he fished the butter out of the bowl and dumped it in the bowl Luther was grudgingly holding out.

“How much butter does this recipe call for, anyway?” Luther asked, squinting at the sheer amount suspiciously. 

“You have to feel the amount in your _heart_ , man.” Klaus said dramatically. That actually made Luther look up in an almost resigned sort of horror.

“You are following a recipe, right?” Their largest sibling asked, but by the look on his face he already knew the answer. Five gave him a pitying look as he popped another marshmallow in his mouth.

Klaus seemed to decide that Luther already knew the answer as well as he dumped an entire box of chocolate chips in. Were they making cookies? Is that what they were doing? Five was pretty sure that cookies didn’t call for the packets of jello powder Klaus had already dumped into the mix, but what did he know?

Luther yanked the melted butter out of the microwave, “I am not taking responsibility for anything that is happened here and I want that acknowledged.”

“You an Ben are such party poopers!” Klaus waved a spoon, hurling what looked like a gummy bear into the cabinet. When did Klaus add gummy bears? Five had missed that. “No faith in our culinary experiments! We’re going to entrepreneurs! Path forgers! Make our mark on the baking world!”

“Whoo.” Five monotoned. 

“At least someone supports me in this house.” Klaus huffed, spooning the mix onto a baking tray, “Yes, I’m talking about Five, Ben! You’ve done nothing but tell me to not do stuff, today. What do you mean, salt?”

Klaus was already shoving the tray into the oven with no small amount of triumph in his eyes. 

“These cookies - ” Ah so they _were_ making cookies, good to know, “Are going to be the _bomb,_ and then we shall shun the nonbelievers! And you will be unable to partake in our one of a kind masterpiece!”

“Not the least because we have no idea what went into it to begin with.” Five pointed out, slamming his heels even harder against the cabinets. Luther’s scowl in his direction did exactly nothing to stop him. 

“Why are you even here?” Luther looked exasperated.

Five raised a hand to his chest, mock offended. “Why Luther! I thought I was supposed to be spending more quality time with my dearest family! Sibling bonding time! Was this not what you wanted?”

Luther shot him a look which screamed ‘I’m onto you, you little shit’ which wasn’t exactly an uncommon one to be shot his way, so Five elected to ignore it. “Hey Klaus,” He instead addressed his lankier sibling, “How long are the cookies supposed to be in for?”

“Uhh,” Klaus swallowed around the rest of the pack of gummy bears he’d been in the process of emptying into his mouth, “I think that’s another thing you’re supposed to feel with your heart, man.”

Of course, then Klaus waved in the air as Ben clearly made some comment or another. Clearly ignoring the brother who usually had a grip on one of the only brain cells the family had. Unwise decision, really.

“I am not eating any of those.” Luther told Klaus point blank, then looked over at Five, “And you, quit eating that junk. You’re going to ruin your dinner.”

“You’re not our _mom,_ " Klaus sang, draping himself dramatically against the counter. Five defiantly shoved another marshmallow into his mouth.

“He’s eating marshmallows and peanut butter straight from the jar, Klaus.” Luther swiped a hand down his face, “That can’t be healthy for anyone.”

“Get off his case! He can eat what he wants! He’s a grown ass man.” And this was why Klaus was currently Five’s _favorite_ brother. At least until he tried to ruffle Five’s hair again, or talk about starting highschool. 

“At least start cleaning up this mess before the others get back, you know Diego is going to pitch a fit if you expect Mom to do it.” Wow, Luther was actually making sense. And even taking into account the feelings of others! Therapy was doing wonders, really.

“Shut up before I make you help.” Klaus swiped at the air again, directing the comment toward their dearly departed sibling rather than Luther. But he did fish a cloth from the sink and slap it onto the counter.

Five would have been perfectly content to simply watch Klaus clear the disaster by himself, but Luther clearing his throat made it perfectly clear that he wouldn’t know peace if he chose that course of action. Sighing deeply at the effort, Five set aside his snacks and hopped off the counter to at least make some vague attempt at looking like he was helping.

An indeterminate amount of time later, the front door opened and the chatter of voices travelled across house. And at the same time, the faint scent of burning arrived as well making Klaus curse and scramble for the oven doors, yanking off a tea towel to pull out the tray while blowing on it frantically.

“I wasn’t involved in this!” Luther called out loudly, drawing attention to the kitchen area. Footsteps came their way, Klaus waving a towel over the cookies as Five abandoned his attempts at cleaning the cupboards to hop back up on the cabinets.

Allison emerged first, waving a hand in front of her face with an expression half puzzled and half disgusted, “What is that smell?”

Ah. They’d all gone fairly nose-blind to the smell of melting sugar and the other myriad of interesting ingredients in the past half an hour. But clearly it was not so kind to their incoming siblings. Klaus was distracted, waving his arms around and justifying his creation, so Five was free to do as he pleased behind the scenes.

“It seems like you boys have been having fun!” Their mother smiled at them as she entered the room, hand delicately tucked into Diego’s elbow as their brother’s face scrunched up in disgust. Here face was serene as she took in the state of the kitchen, even with their efforts to clean up, “Such enthusiasm as well!”

“You better not be expecting Mom to clean this up,” Diego scowled, which only made Luther gesture towards him triumphantly and Klaus to scoff.

“We made cookies!” Klaus declared, “You should be thanking us! The fruits of our labor!”

“How did you not burn down the kitchen?” Allison asked skeptically, picking up a ‘cookie’ between two fingers.

“I did stop him from trying to put a metal bowl in the microwave,” Luther offered to be met with Allison’s approving nod. 

Allison lifted the cookie to her mouth and took a delicate bite, only to do a complete spit take, spraying cookie crumbs across the table. “Oh my god!” She exclaimed, lifting a hand to her mouth and dropping the cookie completely, “Is that poison? Holy shit!”

“Hey!” Klaus exclaimed right back, “How dare you! They can’t be that bad, Five’s eating them!”

The kitchen as a whole turned to Five, who was still sitting on the counter. He froze, half of a cookie already in his mouth and another one clutched in his hand.

“Five Hargreeves! You spit that out right now!” Allison demanded, storming over. Five, the contrary little bastard he was, shoved both cookies into his mouth and chewed frantically, “Five! You’re going to be sick! Five spit it out!” 

In the background, Diego grabbed a cookie and gave it a nibble, only to also stick his tongue out in complete disgust, using a hand to scrape at his tongue in an effort to remove even a bit of the taste. “Klaus, holy shit, what did you put _in_ those cookies?”

At this point the kitchen was in chaos. Grace was quietly fetching a mop, Klaus had decided that Diego’s comment was the last straw and that he was morally outraged, Allison had Five in a headlock as she was yelling at him about ingesting the toxic cookies, and Luther hovered between it all not knowing where to intervene.

Fortunately for all involved, it was at that moment that Vanya returned from practice and walked into the disaster in the making. “What - ” She had to raise her voice to be heard over the cacophony, drawing everyone’s attention to her, “Is going on in here?”

“Five ate poison!” Allison defended, releasing her little brother who scooted as far away from Allison as the counter allowed scowling all the while.

“He did not!” Klaus rebutted, pointing a finger at Allison, “He just appreciates culinary mastery!”

Diego swiped an arm across his mouth, still making a face. “No, no - pretty sure it’s poison.”

“It doesn’t taste _that_ bad, you guys are just babies!” Five scowled harder.

“Enough!” Vanya ordered, making everyone in the kitchen quiet down as Grace arrived with the mop, “Alright, everyone sit down at the table and we’re going to have an actually adult discussion.”

As no one particularly wanted to cross Vanya when she had that look on her face (her control over her powers was improving in leaps and bounds, but there was the occasional accident), everyone obediently sat at the table.

“Klaus, what did you put in the cookies?” Vanya asked sensibly.

However, Klaus just sputtered, “What? This isn’t MY fault! I put normal things in there! Normal kitchen things! From the cupboards! Food items! Edible food items!”

“He wasn’t following a recipe,” Luther tossed out helpfully, “I think he was just throwing whatever in there. Ben could vouch for me, if he was, you know, visible.”

“No he wouldn’t!” Klaus denied, then hissed a quiet _shut up_ to the air next to him, pretty much negating that thought entirely. “Besides! I already exhausted our time for today. That was the whole point of cookies in the first place! To replenish our poor systems.” 

Klaus’s wave included Five in that number, making him sink down in the chair to try and avoid notice. It didn’t work so much.

“It that why you were eating marshmallows and peanut butter?” Luther’s asked, brow furrowed.

“It’s high calorie!” Five defended, bristling slightly. Why could the family never seem to let go of his favorite foods? Vanya didn’t give him this kind of shit. Forget Klaus, Vanya was currently being promoted to favorite sibling.

“Okay okay,” Vanya calmed everyone down, cementing her status as Five’s favorite person further. Of course, then she completely ruined it by saying, “Just throw out the cookies before anything happens.”

“No!” Five yelped, shooting up, “If you guys don’t want them, I’ll take them!”

“You can’t want to eat those, Five.” Allison’s voice was incredulous, “They taste like something died in them!”

“Rude!” Klaus called out, feet already up on the table and pouting with his arms crossed against his chest.

“Guys guys!” Again, it fell to Vanya to get them all to shut up. “Okay, Five? Why don’t you want to throw the cookies out? If you explained it to us, maybe we would understand better.”

Seeing as the family wasn’t making any move towards the cookies, Five slowly sat back down in his chair. Was it a trick question? “It’s food.” He finally pointed out, crossing his arms defensively, “You don’t throw away food, even if it tastes bad.”

There was something sad in Vanya’s eyes that made Five clench his jaw and look away. He didn’t want her _sympathy_. He was fine. He just didn’t see the point in wasting perfectly edible food, was all.

Vanya’s voice was soft, which made it even worse when all she was just, “Oh, _Five._ ”

“I don’t need your pity!” Five snapped, abruptly standing up from the table once more. His chair screeched across the floor, protesting the movement.

“We have plenty of food, Five.” Vanya told him, some of the softness falling away to be replaced by firmness which Five actually appreciated. “Food that actually tastes good to eat, we don’t have to save everything. We have enough, no one is going to go hungry.”

Five stared at the floor, not daring to look around the table that had fallen silent.

“Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to throw out the cookies - ” Vanya ignored the jerk that Five gave, “And clean up the kitchen. Then we can make our own, _actually edible_ cookies, with Mom as supervision. And then we’ll eat enough that we’ll ruin our dinner, and then we’ll watch a stupid movie. Okay?”

The rest of the table chorused their quiet affirmations while Five stood there with hands clenched into fists. 

The other siblings slowly got up from the table to shuffle around the kitchen as Vanya came around the table to place a gentle hand on Five’s shoulder. “Why don’t you help me pick out the movie, okay?”

Five took a deep, shuddering breath, and then gave a quick nod. “Very well, if I must.”

Venya steered him out of the kitchen as Five very carefully didn’t look at where the cookies were being scraped into the trash. HIs shoulders still stiff as he carried himself with care.

“Five - ” Vanya started, but Five cut her off before she could go on.

“I know it’s stupid. I know we have enough food. I just - people waste so much.” The unspoken words about his time alone, where he’d been unable to afford any kind of waste at all, remained unsaid. But Vanya heard them loud and clear.

“I think we’ll have to insist on any future baking attempts to be supervised by Mom,” Vanya joked lightly, earning a slight easing of shoulders for her efforts, “Mom can salvage just about anything I’m pretty sure. But you’re right, people waste a lot of food. But all we can do is our best, right?”

Five nodded, allowing Vanya to continue, “Some stuff is going to be wasted or ruined or spoil, but we have enough, Five. We’re lucky. You don’t have to worry about that stuff. I know it’s hard but - Rome wasn’t built in a day, you know? Recovery is a process. It’s okay if you need help.”

Five didn’t say anything, but Vanya figured her advice had been heard out anyway. Five was many things, but he wasn’t a half bad listener. 

“Alright, what movie do you think we should watch?” Vanya switched the subject easily.

Five gratefully grasped the olive branch, “Anything but another romcom. If Allison pressures us into watching another one I really _will_ hurl my guts out, cookies or not.”

Vanya laughed, “Yeah, I will admit I’m a little sick of those as well. How about that new movie? With the spies in it? And the bank heist?”

“I’m always down for a heist movie,” Five admitted, allowing his sister a small smile.

They were going to be alright. It would just take a while to get there.

**Author's Note:**

> it's not midnight?? or in the AM? and i'm still posting this? it's a christmas miracle lads
> 
> but yeAH please take this offering going only a little bit into the fact that Five would probably have some serious issues with food waste and tossing anything edible. Like this is someone who probably would root around in the garbage for leftovers without caring. Like, he ate cockroaches and shit in the apocalypse he is SO beyond caring what he puts in his mouth as long as it has any nutritional value tbh
> 
> get this boy some THERAPY
> 
>  
> 
> if anything cuts off weird or if there are obvious typos lemme know so I can fix - I will admit I didn't even give it a single read over before posting this bc i have Other Things To Do but enjoy!!  
> Come yell at me on tumblr at in-tua-deep if you want ;3c


End file.
